My Dinosaur repaints - by Lithographica

[Lithographica]

Hello everyone! I'm a new member to the forum but a long time reader (and occasional contributor) to the dinosaur toy blog. I wanted to take this opportunity to share some photographs of my dinosaur model repaints.  I first got started on dinosaur figure repainting about a year ago now, having previously built up and painted a few dinosaur model kits. Ever since then, I have found conversions and repainting to be a really fun and satisfying part of the hobby, and I hope my pictures might help to encourage others to give it a go too. I'd like to take this chance to thank all the other readers who have previously posted pictures of their repaints on the forum, especially the truly remarkable work of Copper and Bokisaurus; seeing some of the STUNNING repaints that others have posted on this forum over the years was definitely what inspired me to try my hand at repainting too, and I have enjoyed many pleasant and rewarding hours with paint brush in hand as a result!



First up, here is my conversion and repaint of the Carnegie Collection 1/40 Triceratops. I replaced the original horns with new ones modelled from Super Sculpy, changed the neck position, lengthened the tail slightly, decreased the gape of the jaws and added a tongue. As you can see from the "before and after" photograph, the repaint colour scheme is basically a brighter and more colourful enhancement of the original model. As you can see, I am a big fan of colourful dinosaurs! Crocodiles and birds are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs, and since both have excellent colour vision, it's likely that dinosaurs had colour vision too (unlike most large mammals). If we take this assumption as our starting point, I don't think it's too unreasonable to suppose that dinosaurs may have very often used colour for communication and signalling,  just as many birds and tropical fish do so today.



If you would like to see some more pictures of this Triceratops repaint, you can find them on my deviantart site here: http://lithographica.deviantart.com/gallery/

And you can read my review of the Carnegie 1/40 Triceratops on the dinosaur toy blog here: http://dinotoyblog.com/2013/09/22/triceratops-version-2-carnegie-collection-by-safari-ltd/



Next up, this is my repaint of the Carnegie 1/40 Saltasurus. The original is a wonderfully animated sauropod figure with a beautiful fluidity of line, but it is cursed with an awful head with essentially no sculpted detail at all - even the eyes are just painted-on black spots! I added some detail to the head as best I could with green stuff before repainting, and also added some more dermal armour scutes with dabs of PVA glue. I thought the patterning on the original model was very effective, and for the repaint I just worked up more colour and contrast.  With this guy I set myself the challenge of seeing what I could achieve using purple as the dominant shade in a dinosaur colour scheme... and yes, I did have "Barney" in the back of my mind when I came up with this idea! More pictures of this repaint on my deviantart site, if you are interested: http://lithographica.deviantart.com/gallery/



Lastly for this post, here is my repaint of the Carnegie 1/40 Corythosaurus. I suspect many forum readers will hold the original model in very high regard. On the grounds of the exceedingly life-like pose and lovely colour scheme, I think it is arguably one of the best dinosaur toys ever released... it really does invoke an impression of a living, breathing animal. No conversion work of any kind was required, I just tried to enhance the colours, and add a little more visual impact to the head (which in life, was surely a focal point for display). One of the nice things about repainting is that you gain an appreciation of what an amazing job the original sculptors did on some of these models; the skin detail on the Carnegie Corythosaurus is very nice indeed, and repainting gives you the chance to bring this detail out to maximum effect.





As usual, you can find a few more pictures of this repaint on my deviantart site: http://lithographica.deviantart.com/gallery/#/gallery/.  More repaints to come soon folks! Stay tuned for the Papo Pachyrhinosaurus to Centrosaurus conversion...   

[SpittersForEver]

I love them!

[DinoToyForum]

Yeah, you've done a really good job on these!

Welcome to the forum by the way! 

[Lithographica]

Thanks to SpittersFor Ever and Dr Admin for the kind comments about my previous!

This is the Pachyrhinosaurus model by Papo, which I converted and repainted to depict the related ceratopsian dinosaur Centrosaurus. It is a real mystery to me that Centrosaurus is such a stunning-looking animal and yet (as far as I know?) there are no good quality dinosaur toys or figures that depict it. While researching Centrosaurus for this conversion I learned that the orientation of the horn was in fact quite variable among individuals; sometimes it curved back (as I have depicted it here), sometimes it was near-vertical and sometimes it curved forward. You see this variation in a lot of the Centrosurus life restoration artwork, and it had always puzzled me until now. If, (like me) you grew up reading dinosaur books in the nineteen- eighties, you are probably more familiar with this dinosaur by the name Monoclonius, which no longer seems to be favoured taxonomically. Pity - it was a cool name!



Here is a "before and after" picture for my Papo Pachyrhinosaurus-to-Centrosaurus conversion. The Papo Pachyrhinosaurus is a very fine dinosaur figure whose pose and exquisite skin detailing really make the model seem alive. It is a model that lends itself very well to converting to other ceratopsians. I trimmed the Pachyrhinosaurus horn boss using a craft knife (this is always easer after the model has been softened by immersing it in very hot water) and added a new Centrosaurus horn modelled from  super sculpy. I changed a few details on the horn frill, which on Centrosaurus has some very distinctive hornlets that are characteristic of the species. I also lengthened the tail, which seemed to my eye to be a little too short on the original model. Green stuff epoxy putty was used for the changes to both frill and tail, and also to smooth the join between the new horn and the snout. This is the first dinosaur "species conversion" that I have done, and it was a lot of fun and, (dare I say it), educational, as changing the species of a model forces you to look very closely at pictures of the skeleton and original fossil material. I used the red and black banding of some coral snakes as the basis for the colour scheme of my Centrosaurus. I had in mind the principle of "warning colouration" - I imagined Centrosaurus as being belligerent and quick to charge, and predators would quickly learn to avoid these animals. I also speculated that bright colours would have a social function to help to over-awe and impress both rivals and potential mates within the herd.



If you are interested, you can find more pictures of this guy at my DeviantArt site:http://lithographica.deviantart.com/gallery/

Cheers, John.

[Everything_Dinosaur]

Very creative and an excellent model, you are brave to venture into the world of Ceratopsid skull and head crest morphology. Well done you.

[Simon]

Very nice customization Jon!

I did something similar about 6 years ago with a bunch of Resaurus ceratopsian figures for a fellow whose main interest was in horned dinos.  They can be seen on my web gallery.  The models were not as realistic as the Papo model is, but customizing them made for a nice challenge ....

[SpittersForEver]

I love the Centra, your painting gives him/her lots of character!

[Gwangi]

Love your custom Centrosaurus. Such a well known dinosaur, I'm also surprised that we haven't seen any produced yet.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I have never been a gifted painter myself and wind up paying to have my dinoaurs repainted for me, so my observation is completely based off models ive paid to have done. One thing I notice is that once you have finished the model your works remain very shiny and look "wet" or reflective which makes them look artificial or painted and removes the natural look from the work. I used to hire a very well known dinosaur sculpter to paint models for me, however he was quite set in his ways and refused to deal with the shiny look of his finished work .
  By comparison, my pieces I have had done by Martin Garratt, are normally sealed or brushed over somehow with a varnish or coating to remove the glossy shine and make the colors look more natural and animal-like.I cannot state for certain what he is doing to create this effect, but it is my understanding the model is perhaps brush coated with a clear flat varnish which not only protects the paint surface, but inhibits the naturally glossy and shiny surface from being so reflective or wet looking.

[Lithographica]

Hi Amargasusrus;

I agree with your comments about gloss, which is the "natural enemy" of all dinosaur repainters! As recommended by Copper on his repainting tutorial posted elsewhere on this forum, I do a final coat mine with an acrylic matte varnish that is intended to kill the gloss.
There's a couple of things to point out here; firstly, photographing small models in bright light does tend to considerably exaggerate the natural gloss - they look a lot less glossy when "in the hand" (clever photographers would be skilful enough with lighting set-ups to avoid this, but alas, I am not that skilful a photographer!). 

The second issue is that I suspect the "gloss killing" power of acrylic matte varnish is weakened when the varnish is thinned or diluted with water to ensure a smooth application. So there is a difficult trade-off for dinosaur repainters here - a thicker coat of varnish would probably kill more gloss, but as the coats get thicker you risk loosing surface detail and texture (which on dinosaur models is often only a fraction of a millimetre thick).

If any other dinosaur repainters have comments or solutions on the gloss-killing issue I would LOVE to hear them!

You are very fortunate to posses works by Martin Garret in your collection - I have seen his gallery on deviantart, and his skills as a dinosaur model painter are up there in the stratosphere! He does do his repainting with an airbrush though, and my impression is that airbrush finishes are inherently much easier to keep matte than hand painted finishes. Again, any tips or techniques from other painters would be welcome - please post!   

[Lithographica]

A big thanks to all who were kind enough to comment on my Centrosaurus. The original was such a characterful animal, and I can only agree with Gwangi that it seems genuinely strange that no quality, mass-produced Centrosaurus figure has yet appeared on the market.

Today I'm posting my conversion and repaint of the CollectA model of the Australian dinosaur Muttaburrasaurus. This is an animal close to the hearts of all dinosaur fans from Down Under! This was actually the first dinosaur toy conversion and repaint that I ever did. In some respects it's a bit more amateurish then some of the models I've done since, but I'm still fond of it. To be fair, it's a very small model, only about 15cm long, and at that scale the extreme close-up photography tends to exaggerate every blemish (it looks a lot better on the shelf). The tail and back crest that I added to this model are purely speculative - I based the crests of my Muttaburrasaurus on those of the common basilisk lizard from South America. The green and yellow of this guy is also a bit of a private joke - Muttaburrasaurus is the iconic Australian dinosaur, and "the green and gold" are the national sporting colours of Australia (as if you hadn't guessed already, I'm an Australian myself). 



Here is a montage showing the conversion and repaint of my Muttaburrasaurus model by CollectA. The text is lengthy, but if you are interested in trying your hand at converting and repainting toy figures but have no idea how to get started, then check it out! As always, you can see more of my collection at http://lithographica.deviantart.com/gallery/



A) This is the model as sold by CollectA (the image is from their web page). It's an OK model of an interesting dinosaur species. Note the rather plain brown colour scheme, and the head, which is turned sharply at ninety degrees. This means the figure displays well at some angles, but not others.

B) Here I have cut off the head, and repositioned it to make the neck straighter. The mechanical strength for the join comes from a short length of wire that was glued into receiving holes drilled into the neck and body. The wire was then packed around with crumpled aluminium foil to build up the basic contours of the neck again (using aluminium foil for this is cheaper and more lightweight than epoxy putty). By the way, note the white patch on the side of the head - believe it or not, the original model has what appears to be ear lobes! These are of course unrealistic for a reptile, and it was the work of a moment to whittle these back with a craft knife. By the way, immersing the model in near boiling water (straight from the kettle) makes it much easier (and safer!) to cut with a saw or craft knife.

C) Here I have used the two-part epoxy putty known to model-makers as "green stuff" to remodel the figure (the best and cheapest sources I have found for green stuff are on eBay). First, I applied a thin layer of green stuff over the tinfoil around the neck, and sculpted it to match the skin folds of the surrounding model. With care, and a few simple tools such as toothpicks and pencil-tips, sculpting epoxy putty like this is not as hard as you might think. Having repositioned the neck, I still thought the model looked a bit plain, so using more green stuff I added a (purely speculative) crest along the tail and back. I also exaggerated the "nose bump" that is the most distinguishing feature of Muttaburrasaurus, and added some (again, purely speculative) spikes on the back of neck. The spikes were made using green stuff over short lengths of wire - it's always best to reinforce green stuff in this way if you can, because otherwise it is very brittle and prone to snapping. 

D) The conversion work has now been completed, and the model has been primed with a white undercoat. Specialist primers for models are available in spray cans, the advantage of these being a microscopically-thin paint thickness which won't obscure that precious surface detail! In principle, you could do away with a primer and apply repaint colours straight over the original model, but I prefer to work over a white undercoat, because it brings out the full brightness and intensity of the repaint colours, and it also gives a better "tooth" to the surface which makes paint grip to it more readily off the brush. It's also rather easier to design a completely new colour scheme when starting from a blank white "canvass" as it were. Here you can see I'm roughing out the colour-scheme markings in pencil.

E) Here the model is "blocked out" in the new colour scheme. The idea at this initial stage of painting is to just to establish the correct outlines and cover up all that white undercoat with colour (this flat colour provides the base for the dry-brushing, blending and washing techniques that come later). The colours at this point are fairly flat and uniform, and not especially life-like. Incidentally, when you compare this picture with the finished model depicted below you can see how my colour choices changed slightly as the model progressed - for example, I did away with the red on the nose "bump"... because it was far too reminiscent of Rudolf the reindeer!

F) Here is the finished model. Once the main colours are blocked-in, the "special effects" used in painting models such as blending, dry-brushing and washing can be used to help bring out the surface detail and create more of an illusion of a large scale three-dimensional form. I won't go into detail about these painting effects here, but just Google the terms and you will find plenty of on-line tutorials. Even though they are very different techniques, the basic principle behind dry brushing, blending and washing is the same - to eliminate expanses of flat colour, and instead introduce gradations of tone that mimic the natural play of light across a large-scale three-dimensional form.

Also depicted in this picture is the diorama base that I made for the model. The base itself is varnished timber with the terrain built up in plaster of Paris. I depicted the Muttaburrasaurus walking along a beach of volcanic black sand - complete with splashing puddles, washed up seaweed and prehistoric seashells. The seaweed is dried moss, made to look wet with varnish, and the huge prehistoric seashells (I was thinking of ammonites) are actually the tiniest shells I could find at the beach, painted up in bright colours to make them look "fresh". Scenic bases like this are always worth considering for your models. There is no end of "scenery" products available for model railroads that make them relatively easy to make, and a good diorama base will vastly enhance the visual impact of your work!

Well, if you are new to the hobby of converting and repainting toy figures I hope this little tutorial might encourage you to give it a go. It's really nowhere near as hard as you might think, and if you start out with a relatively cheap toy figure or model to begin with, you don't have much to lose anyway! 

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Hi Amargasusrus;

I agree with your comments about gloss, which is the "natural enemy" of all dinosaur repainters! As recommended by Copper on his repainting tutorial posted elsewhere on this forum, I do a final coat mine with an acrylic matte varnish that is intended to kill the gloss.
There's a couple of things to point out here; firstly, photographing small models in bright light does tend to considerably exaggerate the natural gloss - they look a lot less glossy when "in the hand" (clever photographers would be skilful enough with lighting set-ups to avoid this, but alas, I am not that skilful a photographer!). 

The second issue is that I suspect the "gloss killing" power of acrylic matte varnish is weakened when the varnish is thinned or diluted with water to ensure a smooth application. So there is a difficult trade-off for dinosaur repainters here - a thicker coat of varnish would probably kill more gloss, but as the coats get thicker you risk loosing surface detail and texture (which on dinosaur models is often only a fraction of a millimetre thick).

If any other dinosaur repainters have comments or solutions on the gloss-killing issue I would LOVE to hear them!

You are very fortunate to posses works by Martin Garret in your collection - I have seen his gallery on deviantart, and his skills as a dinosaur model painter are up there in the stratosphere! He does do his repainting with an airbrush though, and my impression is that airbrush finishes are inherently much easier to keep matte than hand painted finishes. Again, any tips or techniques from other painters would be welcome - please post!

Very valid points, could be just the lighting and nothing more to it of course. One point I did want to throw up there about my work I own by Martin, I have some Krentz models, I believe 1/144, and a dinotales by Kaiyodo or three, as well as a good many very small models printed off Shapeways, that were done by Martin and just simply could not have been possibly airbrushed given the size. I think he does some of his work with brushes, although if he seals them using an airbrush I could not speculate.I do know he painted a set of four Psittacosaurus models for me, and he told me the figures were done with brush.I think he may do larger pieces with an airbrush perhaps and smaller things with a finer touch but I do not know for certain. I do know my smaller pieces I am guessing almost would have had to be done with brush

[Lithographica]

Hello again Amargasaurus;

Thanks for posting! I appreciated your comments, and since your last post I have been poking around on the internet looking for gloss-killing solutions. One thing I learned is that spray finishes tend to be less glossy than brushed finishes, because on a microscopic scale the spray creates a rough surface texture that scatters light rather than reflecting it straight back.

In view of this, there are some interesting spray matte finishes on the market such as "testors dulcote". Perhaps this is the final finishing product that you were thinking of in your original post? I thought I might try one of these spray finishes over my painted acrylic varnish. I'm a bit nervous though, as aerosols (specifically, aerosol solvents) seem to have a reputation for attacking some plastics. I wonder if anyone on the forum has any experience on this?

Cheers, John, 

[Lithographica]

Here are some pictures of my Collecta Cryolophosaurus. Perhaps I should call this an "enhancement" rather than a repaint - I quite liked the original colour scheme and just put applied some more vivid colours over the top of the factory paint job for the reds and yellows on the head, and added some black spots to give more visual interest to the hindquarters. I also used a "black wash" to bring out the skin detail a little more. I find this model one of the more appealing and characterful dinosaurs in the Collecta range and you can read my review of the original figure here;

http://dinotoyblog.com/2014/01/04/cryolophosaurus-collecta/



Here is a "before and after" picture of my Collecta Cryolophosaurus. Note that I fixed the pronated hands! This procedure for this is pretty simple; immerse the model in very warm water to soften the plastic, then cut off the hands at the wrist with a craft knife. I like to then drill matching holes in both sides of the cut to take a short length of wire to strengthen the join. Then simply fit the wire and glue the hands back on to the arms with super glue. Some filler is then required to seamlessly merge the re-positioned hands back onto the sculpt; I use "green stuff" two-part modelling epoxy for this. Then paints are applied over the epoxy to restore the colour scheme, and the job is done. If interested, you can see more images of this figure at; 

http://lithographica.deviantart.com/gallery/

[Lithographica]

Here's my repaint of the Minmi figure by Collecta. It's fair to say that that Minmi is probably a dinosaur that most people have probably never heard of, but this primitive ankylosaur from the early Cretaceous is actually the most complete dinosaur fossil yet discovered from Australia. Minmi was quite a small herbivorous dinosaur, no more than 3 metres long (including the tail) and probably standing only a metre or so tall. This figure is a fine little model with an appealing pose and character, and underneath the rather uninspired factory-issue colour scheme, the sculpting is very fine and crisp, with commendable attention to detail on the armour. The colour scheme on my repaint of this guy is inspired by an African lizard called the common (or rainbow) agama. You can find more pictures of my repaints on my deviantart site, if you are interested - http://lithographica.deviantart.com/gallery/

[Tyto_Theropod]

I really like the Cryolophosaurus - great job you did there

[alexeratops]

Cool paints! You've got talent. Try repainting the CollectA Concavenator!

[Dinomike]

Great repaints and really original color schemes!  Great work!

[RockyMountainRex]

I agree, these are great!  Keep up the good work and having fun.